Creigiau

Designer	Reg Sutcliffe
Maker	Creigiau Pottery
Marks	Stamped “Creigiau Wales” in blue ink to underside of bowl and plate
Material	Stoneware
Description	Hand-made glazed and incised stoneware bowl and saucer with grey glaze to entire surface; lightly applied brown overglaze on exterior.  Wedge handle attached to upper third of bowl, angled upward with end excised with lines.  Glazed dimpled foot ring.
Condition	Very good.  One bowl cracked through
Number	No number
Production Date	Late 1970s
Width at rim	112mm
Width at Base	63mm
Depth	60mm
Length (with handle)	167mm
Weight	235gm
Volume	375ml
Acquisition	Purchase E-Bay 18 August 2014.
Rameking Reference Number	CRE 001-016

Reginald George Southcliffe was an accountant who was born in June 1912 in Newport, Monmouthshire in Wales, UK.  In his early years, his interest in chemistry led to an interest in glazing ceramics.  He began experimenting with glazes on pottery that he made at his home.  This led to him becoming a full-time potter.   With an accountants fastidiousness, he looked long and hard for the right location for his pottery.  In 1947, he found it in the Creigiau region on Efail Esaf Road and bought land at the former Hendresguthan Fach Farm.  The area had been recorded as “potters land” as early as 1420.   It is just past the “Ceasars Arms” hotel, once the largest employer in the area.

Creigiau is a commuter area of around 1000 houses and 2,500 people to the north-west of Cardiff, the capital of Wales.  Creigiau’s claim to fame was its quarry.  The dolomite pit opened in the 1870s to supply stone to build Cardiff docks.  Later, the limestone and magnesium dolomite was used in the steel making process.    

Reg and his wife Jean began the Southcliffe Ceramic Company at Creigiau.  (The next year the name was changed to “Creigiau Pottery.”  They experienced problems early on with cuts to electricity, lack of coal and poor quality coal.  A purchase tax was also imposed on their goods, creating further problems to the fledgling business.  Their pottery mark was at different times incised, impressed or printed.  They produced domestic table and decorative wares in earthenware with incised decoration and a greyish glaze partially covering the brown body and throwing the design into relief. 

Reg later took over the Claypits Pottery at Ewenny after potters Thomas A, and D Jenkins retired.  Reg re-named it the “Vale Pottery.”  Helyg had been founded in 1820 by Evan Jenkins. It was later taken over by new owners and re-named the “Helyg Pottery.”  Helyg continues in Ilkley, North Yorkshire.

Practice makes perfect they say, and so it was with Reg.  His specialty became a revival of Welsh copper lusterware.  There had been a tradition in Wales of making Copper Lustre ware going back over 200 years.  This skill had sadly died out in the late 19^th Century but Reg worked hard to re-learn the skills.  Creigiau became well-known for reproduction antique jugs and coffee sets in lustre.  They exported this ware throughout the world until the late 1970s when they were forced to close.  The craft shop at the pottery was well frequented by tourists until then. 

Reg died in June, 1981 and Jean continued to hand-make pots for another two years before she retired in 1983.  Jean Howden Southcliffe died in 2000 in Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Wales.